


A Time Before [Percico]

by Mother_of_Tragedy



Series: How To Raise The New Gods [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alive Bianca di Angelo, Anal Sex, Angst and Feels, Annabeth is like a big sister to Nico that is also fucking Nico's biological sister, Bisexual Annabeth Chase, Bisexual Percy Jackson, But he does get her at the end, Child Gods/Goddess, Confused Percy Jackson, Consensual Somnophilia, F/F, Hades is a Good Parent, M/M, Matchmaker Bianca di Angelo, Minor Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Nico and Bianca live with Percy and Sally, Nico di Angelo Needs a Hug, Nico di Angelo is a Cute Dork, Oral Sex, Percy is sexually attracted to Nico and doesn't know what to do, Porn With Plot, Protective Bianca Di Angelo, Rough Sex, Sad Nico di Angelo, Something is blocking Nico from retrieving Hazel from the underworld, The Fate of the world is Fucked Up, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:54:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22138900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mother_of_Tragedy/pseuds/Mother_of_Tragedy
Summary: Nico had lived a life of heartache after heartache, trauma, and grief moving hand in hand. The fates seemed to think this some sick joke, but now, now he starts again and so does his fate. But this time, the Fates have a different plan for the Son of Hades.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Bianca di Angelo, Nico di Angelo/Percy Jackson
Series: How To Raise The New Gods [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1593520
Comments: 17
Kudos: 162





	1. Hope In Hand

_ Many acknowledged the war was lost the day Percy Jackson took his final breath.  _

_ His breath wet with blood, his carcass so mutilated that if not for Riptide at his side and those dull sea-green eyes, he would be unrecognizable. The heart-wrenching ear-piercing howl Sally Jackson wailed in her son's final moments that twilight still plagued numerous mortals to this day. _

_ They spoke of it now, in hushed murmurs, the day Olympus hero fell, the day all hope was lost. Now his corpse was among the masses used to assemble Gaea her throne.  _

_ It had been twenty-eight years since the day Percy died, Nico Di Angelo endured, scarcely.  _

_ His companions are all gone. The planet now overgrown with weeds, monuments crumbled, and cities vanquished. America was demolished first, but Europe rapidly followed, it was only a matter of days before Gaea and her army had the world quiver in her grasp. _

_ Now Nico lay in his own filth, his body growing colder by the minute as he clasped his heart in hand. He couldn't hear anything besides the pleasant buzzing in his ears as shadows darkened his vision.  _

_ When his vision came back to him, he was ten, in the Lotus Hotel and Casino. Hope in hand. And some drunk goddesses trying to fuck him over with a golden band ring that pulsed to a heartbeat.  _


	2. Sister Dearest, My Darling Ghost of the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here is the First Chapter of A Time Before, please be warned that there is no Percico in this chapter, you might not even meet Percy until a few chapters afterward. Enjoy.
> 
> Cheers,  
> Mother_Of-Tragedy!

Nico jerks himself awake. The sudden pull of consciousness had him screaming so loud that it startles the other occupant in the room. 

The feel of silk sheets beneath his body felt foreign to him, so use to sleeping on the ruins of the world, that the added comfort made him feel vulnerable. His body wrestled through the sheets until he hit the carpeted floor. Even that didn’t bring the Son of Hades ease. In a hastily escape of the sheets that clung to his sweaty olive skin, Nico backed himself into the corner, eyes darting around the familiar yet unfamiliar room. The faint scent of soap only added to his discomfort, Nico so used to smelling like sweat, blood and what you would usually expect from a forty-two-year-old who only bathed and properly groomed once every six months after being repulsed by his smell. And even then in the barren wasteland of the earth, water was scared and bathing usually consists of rubbing wildflowers and oil under his pits. 

His gaze locked onto that of a small child looking over the other side of the bed. His Hope. 

Only her head was visible. Cheeks smeared with dirt and grime, hair oily and an untamed tangle of knots. She peered at him with blue-grey eyes that still had light and life even after being raised in the ends of the world. Nico always assumed that because she never saw life before the day Gaea took her place as ruler she had lost nothing and was raised with nothing.

“Hope.” His voice sounded wrong, it was too high, to different. It was too easy to speak and his mouth wasn’t dry of dehydration. 

His moist tongue licked at the cover of his lips, he couldn’t feel the scars that were carved into his face, all he felt was soft skin and even softer lips. 

His eyes looked back up to the child who now stood to allow Nico to look at the tattered dress that hung off her small frame and the beaten and patched black leather bomber jacket that Nico had worn in his youth. The rest of her looked as grubby and unclean as her face did. She looked uncertain, confused really as she looked at Nico, her fingers clenching the jacket into her palm and her teeth sinking into her bottom lip.

Eyes glancing around the room again before looking at the girl. The room was clean and white and looked as if there wasn’t a speck of dirt, Hope looked out of place in this room, covered in grim and dry blood and still smelling like the apocalypse.

“Hope,” Nico said lowly, his voice still not as low as it had been the day before. “What did you do?”

Hope stressed out, looking around the room desperately before looking back at Nico.“I don’t know.” 

“Hope-”

  
“I just knew I didn’t want you to die!” Hope yelled, tears staining her cheeks as they slid down from her eyes and dripped off her jaws. She then glanced down at herself, head tucked into her shoulders. “I don’t know what happened. I-I was trying to save you but… But my hands keep shaking and - and you kept saying it was alright... But then more monsters entered the room and I- and I panicked, I didn’t mean too... I just wanted you alive.”

Hope glanced at Nico before running at him, jumping over the bed and wrapping her arms tightly around his hips so her head rubbing against his stomach. Yesterday she couldn’t reach his stomach, yesterday she only reached his tighs. Nico instantly wrapped his arms around him, before lifting his right arm in shock. The last he had seen of that arm was when he had sacrificed it to a flock of Stymphalian birds, it was maybe four or five years after Hope was born. Time in the apocalypse where hard to keep track of, there were no longer seasons now that the gods were all dead. 

“Nico?”

The memory of that voice resurfaced in his mind as Nico glanced towards the door across the room. An olive head with silky dark hair slipped through the threshold, scanning over the room before looking towards the two huddled in the far corner. Nico held his throat, eyes wide as the rest of the figure stepped into the room. Bianca. Nico’s mind told him numbly but he just clung tighter onto Hope, praying that this was real that after all these years, that she wasn’t a ghost. 

“Nico? Are you okay?” Bianca asked, her Italian accent thick as she spoke English. Living breathing Bianca who looked at her little brother with nothing but love and affection in her eyes. “I heard a scream.”

Bianca glanced down her brother to the sobbing mess in his arms, Nico didn’t release his grip on the small child, instead, tightening it as Bianca came closer. 

“Who’s this?”  
“Hope.” Nico could only say in a broken voice, he was torn between laughing at a joke this was or crying over his dead sister.

Bianca knitted her eyebrows as she drew closer. “Where are her parents?”

Nico couldn’t say anything, Bianca was in front of him. If he were to reach out his arm he could touch her, if he reached out his arm she could disappear. This could be real or this could be a dream. Nico didn’t know what, but he knew that he didn’t want to wake up. Not yet, not now. Not with Bianca just an arm’s length away. 

Hope pulled herself from Nico, her still wet eyes curiously looking at Bianca before shyly tucking herself back into Nico. 

Bianca smiled. “She likes you.”  
It was meant to sound teasingly, Nico knew she was trying to tease him, but with Hope in his arms and Bianca alive before him, Nico couldn’t find himself to care at the teasing tone in Bianca’s voice. 

As Bianca took a step closer her nose wrinkled with disgust, Nico feared that she might say something to him that would make this dream a nightmare. She might say how she hated him, how it was all his fault, how he-

“She needs a bath,” Bianca said softly. “Do you think her parents would mind if we gave her a bath?”  
“I don’t have parents,” Hope mutters lowly, letting her blue-grey eyes once again peak out at Bianca. 

Bianca frowned. Her eyes glancing up into Nico’s before she dropped down in a crouching position before Hope. “I’m sorry, Tesoro.”

Hope smiled at Bianca, moving now so that she wasn’t hidden by Nico. “Tesoro?”  
“It means Darling in Italian.” Bianca grins. 

“Nico was in Italy.”  
“Yes, Nico was in Italy, as was I.”  
“Really?!” Hope said loudly, she had now released Nico completely to look at Bianca with wide and lifeful eyes. 

Bianca smiled warmly, taking the girl in her arms. “Come along, Tesoro, let’s give you a bath.”

Hope looks towards the still frozen Nico who stood in the corner. “Nico? Are you coming?”

Nico nodded numbly, his body moving but his mind still stuck. 

**...///...///...///...**

The bath hadn’t gone as plan, appearance-wise Hope looked like a four-year-old, and Bianca found it indecent for Nico to look at her exposed body but Hope didn’t trust Bianca enough to stay in a room alone with her. It leads to the current predicament of Nico facing the door, with his back to the two girls he considers family, as Bianca washed the dirty child in the bath humming Italian lullabies. 

“How do you know Nico?” Hope asked, her curious mind not piecing together the way Nico had reacted to Bianca, then again she was hiding in Nico’s stomach. 

“I’m his big sister,” Bianca said softly, the continued sound of water dripping filled Nico’s ears. “Bianca.”

“But your-”

  
“Maybe you should try a bubble bath,” Nico said hastily, his fingernails digging deeply into his thighs as he faced the door. 

“First we need to get rid of the dirt.” Bianca paused, the water now still and not moving as Nico once heard. “The water is already brown with dirt.”

The sound of the bath being emptied as the soft giggles that slipped past Hope's lips, Nico sat frozen, staring at the door waiting from something, or someone to awaken him from this dream and pierce a sword through his chest. 

Bianca huffs, laughter clear in her voice. “There you go, Tesoro, one more bath and you’d be clean once again.”  
“I’ve never been this clean before.” Hope giggles again.  
“Never?”

  
“I like being clean.” Hope states, ignoring Bianca in favor of making sniffing sounds. “I smell funny.”  
“You smell like soap,” Bianca said tensely. 

Nico could feel the older girls gaze on his back before it was gone at the sounds of laughter. From where he sat the soap burned at his nose, it was too pleasant. Nico was more prune to the smell of death or blood or sweat or just grossness, not lavender-scented soap and a ton of shampoo and conditioner. 

“Can we have bubbles this time?!” Hope asks excitedly. “Nico said something about bubbles!”

Nico snorted quietly to himself, Hope didn’t even know what bubbles were. If he were to say she should try vegetables or even prune juice the girl would jump at the chance to try it. He could practically feel the excitement radiate off the girl as Bianca agreed. The sound of running water continued once again and the room was filled with a comfortable silence. 

“Nico?” Perking up at his name Nico didn’t turn around towards his sister, but he did incline his head as if to say that he heard her. 

“I’m just going to grab some clothes and a hairbrush for Hope, can you look after her while I’m gone?” Bianca asked.

  
Nico nodded. He had looked after the girl for eight years in a time where children were a distant memory and there was always something hungry and ready to eat them, he was sure he could handle her for a few minutes that Bianca was to leave the room. Something in him told him to follow after his sister, to make sure that if something were to happen, she wouldn’t disappear. But he also knew that leaving a child in a bathroom was a bad idea, especially if this child was a beacon for trouble and didn’t know how to swim. The water was shallow, but he had heard stories of children older than Hope drowning in bathtubs.

“I think we’re in the past,” Nico said quietly. He could hear the water splash around behind him, but Nico did not attempt to turn. 

“This doesn’t look like the past,” Hope said, confusion in her voice that Nico had to kick himself that Hope didn’t understand. 

“I think we’re in a time before Gaea,”

It was silent behind him, but he could hear Hope’s soft voice through the silence. “The time before Gaea? But that’s not possible.”  
“You’re not possible,” Nico said softly, “this is… different.”

“So Bianca, she’s alive? I thought she died before Gaea.”

“Bianca died after she joined the Hunt of Artemis.” Nico corrected her, “The first time Krono’s ruled.”

“I like Bianca.”  
“I do too.”  
  


“Can she not die this time?” Hope asks.  
Nico wanted that more than anything, he wanted his sister to live and stay alive but Nico was no longer the naive looking child anymore, what if he were to save Bianca one day only for her to die another. “My father once told me ‘ _some deaths, cannot and should not be prevented_ ’.”

“But I like Bianca,” Hope said firmer this time. “I don’t want her to die.”  
“Neither do I, I don’t think I could handle it a second time,” Nico admitted. 

Nico stood and turned towards the mirror, in the corner he could see Hope looking at him from the porcelain bath. Her hair wet and a dark brunette color that lay flat on her brown skin, she was covered by the bath so Nico could only see her face. She no longer looked grubby or dirty. 

But Nico knew he shouldn’t be looking at Hope, he should be looking at himself. Dragging his eyes away from Hope he meets his own eyes in the reflection and held his breath. Two dark eyes like that of his father. No longer did a deep scar ran down the right his face, twisting his features and destroying the corner of his mouth. No more did he had only one eye. No more did his skin wrinkle around the eyes or have hard lines on his forehead. No more was he forty-eight and broken by the world. 

Nico was ten again. Bright-eyed and skin unblemished by scars and torment that he had endured for thirty-four years. This time, Nico swore, this time things would be different. This time, Nico wasn’t going to let Gaea reign.


	3. Bedtime Stories at the Lotus Hotel and Casino... well, not really... but Percy Jackson arrives and he's kinda like a dream.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The title says it all.

Bianca returned with a modest floral dress for Hope to wear, some white stocking and some flat ballet shoes. She refused to part with Nico’s leather bomber jacket. Nico looked down at the jacket, it was too big for Hope, patchy and falling apart at the seams. It had also been the jacket, Nico had wrapped Hope in the jacket minutes after she was cut from her mother’s womb and carried her across the fallen city of Phoenix. Hope called it her special jacket. Bianca called it a few years away from falling apart and becoming rags. But Hope persisted. 

Bianca -with a lot of help with conditioner- was able to detangle the bird’s nest that resided in Hope’s hair. Bianca then took Hope to a salon nearby and had Hope’s hair cut shoulders. Now she looked more like a little girl then she did an apocalypse baby.

Nico was in the Lotus and Hotel Casino, but something kept him there, like an invisible force that wouldn’t let him out of the building. The shadows still obeyed his command, but still even when he tried to shadow jump he never left the building. Days may have passed, maybe even months or years, but the three never aged, stuck in a continuous loop. Hope could leave though, only for a few minutes to go in front of the building to grab a newspaper before running back inside to Nico. World War II was happening while they were inside one day, the next it was over after that President Kennedy had Marilyn Monroe sing happy birthday to him and so on and so on.

Nico ended up cursing the fates in every language he could think of, loudly might he add. So what if he could hear the thunder crack after an existential time of yelling ‘Fuck You’ to the gods. 

After that it was just like Nico remembered where he was and watched as the victims of the Lotus Hotel and Casino occupants walked around like twenty-first-century zombies, the place always adding something new to draw in victims. It contained addictive games, exotic food, and other activities, combined with unlimited money on plastic cards. 

Nico didn’t eat anything in his time there, something about this whole traveling back in time thing just didn’t feel right. That and the last time Nico dreamt something this realistic, granted he was delirious after losing an eye, he ended up taking a bite of the rotten, maggot filled poison fruit that Gaeaa left out for stupid humans to eat out of hunger. 

And because Nico didn’t eat, Hope didn’t feel the need to humor Bianca with eating. 

Oddly enough he didn’t feel compelled to stay even. Hope didn’t either, the problem was Nico couldn’t manage to walk through those front doors and leave. The fates were keeping him there, Nico could tell. Gods did he hate the Fates. He knew those sneaky bags of bones was the reason that Nico was unable to leave, he could just hear them crackling at his frustration. 

He waited. Minding his time, waiting to leave. He walked around the Lotus Hotel and Casino, watched new people getting sucked in by its poisonous beauty. 

Bianca was always watching him, eyebrows drew together in confusion. She said he had changed, he had, spending a life without his sister had changed him, spending a lifetime at the end of the world did that to a person. Nico was violent now, he was angry, he was depressed, he suffered through the beautiful and nightmarish memories that haunted his mind. He no longer was the child Bianca claimed him to be, after going through what he had, Nico didn’t think it was possible to go back to that child he once was. To the person he once was. He was broken. 

Nico knew Bianca was growing more concerned and more concerned throughout their time in the Lotus Hotel and Casino. 

Bianca had walked into Nico’s room once, Nico had actually barricaded it, sharp objects pointed at the door and a million boobytraps set out to harm any that entered unannounced. Bianca didn’t find him on the bed, she found him curled tightly on the other side of the room, hidden in the corner. Blankets forfeited in exchange for kitchen knives Nico had stolen tucked close to his body. 

Biana noticed how Nico rarely let Hope out of his sight, always watching her as if he expected something to happen. Something to spring out and attack her so that Nico could grab the hidden knife in his pocket and throw it. He had actually already thrown one at a guest who had gotten too close to the blue-grey eyed girl, while Bianca had gone to apologized, Nico had just glared darkly at him until he left. 

One time when Nico was plagued by memories, Bianca had placed her hand on his shoulder, a gentle touch that was meant to direct her brother’s attention towards her. Nico had reacted before he knew it, a steak knife in hand he had gone to stab her in the neck. Eyes shaking and unrecognizable, not seeing his sister as he brought the knife down. Hope had frozen him momentarily before he could actually hurt her, but Bianca always looked weary now often keep her hands to herself.

Nico wanted to tell her, the only thing stopping him was the fact that every time he tried no words came out. How could he tell his sister that she had died? That after death she chose to be reborn then to be with him. That by the time he was sixteen, the world was so fucked up that if he wasn’t killed by monsters, or titans, or giants, he would be killed by radiation from the failed nuclear warfare that failed to kill Gaea. How do you tell someone that? How do you even try too? 

...///...///...///...

“Shit!”

  
“Nico!” Bianca reprimed. “Language!”

“Right. Sorry, sorry…” Nico waved off unapologetic, pushing Hope behind him slightly to glare at the force that had bumped into him. His tongue lodged into his throat at those sea-green eyes staring into his dark ones. 

* * *

_ Nico never thought it would end like this, Percy lying in a puddle of his own blood. His fingers twitching ever so slightly, as he choked on the thick red liquid dripping from his lips. But so be it, the end of Percy’s life, crushed in an instant. He can't move his body, every bone is broken or shattered, every organ punctured. Will tried every hymn he knew but it wasn’t working, Percy wasn’t getting better.  _

_ Percy was scared, tears dripping down his pale cheeks. Percy’s voice was nothing more than a painful gurgle, a small whine and the hazards sound of someone chocking. _

_ Eyes frantically looking from Will to Nico. Neither could do anything but try to ease the obvious pain from the son of Poseidon. _

_ He could hear Annabeth cries, Sally’s screams and the hope for the future shatter at the moment that Percy’s eyes rolled back and his chest lay still. Will had tried compressions, he had tried mouth to mouth but Nico could hardly see through the fat tears in his eyes. Sally had taken her son’s body into her arms, weeping loudly as he lay limp in her arms. _

_ He could feel Thanatos close by, fingers moving close to Percy. No matter how much Nico screamed at him to leave him, to leave his friend. Thanatos stole Percy’s soul and guided him down to the underworld. _

_ They never made it to the underworld and Nico could only watch helplessly as Gaea plucked Percy’s soul and devoured it.  _

_ No one really talks about what death is really is. Sure, they mention it and often wonder what happened afterward. They tell you about how it would affect a family - how hurt it is to be the one left behind. Maybe they would speak of a tunnel with a bright light, or an angel swooping down to earth to carry up to heaven or swimming in the river of Styx.  _

_ Whoever said that death was beautiful clearly hadn’t been there to witness someone die themselves. It was a bloody mess. It’s devastating and disgusting and most mortals would never admit it. It was the reason they cut the body open and made it presentable or they hid them in boxes and buried them in the earth.  _

_ But Nico had stayed by Percy’s body. Some part of him in denial about what had happened. There was no time to bury him and no time to stop and mourn. They still had to fight.  _

_ Nico had watched as Percy’s body tightened and his muscles relaxed. He had smelt it when Percy’s bowels had relaxed while Sally sobbed holding onto her only child. Thirty minutes later his still open and dry eyes had already begun to sink into his skull and rigor mortis had begun to set in. His skin was now more than just pale - it was almost a silky bruised purple under the dry blood, by nightfall it’s transitioned into a greenish-blue. The smell of rot and decay had already begun to settle in making the uneasiness in your stomach rise and spew out your mouth.  _

_ Nico, Sally, Annabeth, and Will spent a week barricade in ruins of a Christian church. Watching as Percy slowly decomposed before their eyes.  _

* * *

“... Percy…” The name slipped past Percy’s lips before he could stop it. 

Said boy tilted his head slightly at Nico, looking down at him with a raised brow. He opened his lips to say something but was cut off by an excited squeal.   
  


“Percy Jackson?” Hope said excitedly, jumping from her position behind Nico. Nico barely had to blink before Hope had thrown herself into the unsuspecting arms of Percy Jackson. “I can’t believe it, Nico, it’s Percy Jackson! Percy Jackson!”

“...Hi?” Percy looked unsure at the little girl in his arms who was beaming up at him.

“Oh my god, you were my favorite bedtime story.” Hope gushed, wrapping her arms tightly around Percy, Nico was kinda mortified at the string of possessiveness roll in his underbelly at Percy touching Hope. If he were anyone else, Nico would have stabbed them with a spork. But this was Percy, Nico trusted Percy. And if Percy tried anything, there was always a spork nearby to stab at him. 

“Nico use to tell me about you every night.” Hope continued of, “Like the time you fell into Tartarus, and the time you fought the minotaur, and the Hydra, and the time you went and got the golden fleece, and the time when you fought Ares, and the time Hades locked you in the underworld, and the time you stopped the lightning thief, and your battle with Kronos, and-”

“Percy?” Bianca said looking confusedly at the other confused boy. “Nico do you know him?”   
“Kinda,” Nico admitted lowly, as if not to stop Hopes ranting or direct the confused boy’s attention to himself.

Hope’s mouth was going a mile a minute, talking about everything Nico had told her as bedtime stories to help her sleep at night. Percy Jackson’s heroic endeavors where one of the most popular to the young child. Nico briefly wondered if he was like that when he was younger and hanging onto every word Percy said - well, actually that would be older.

Time travel was a bitch. Especially if the person is forty-eight, or actually one-hundred and sixteen years old. Nico winced slightly at the small maths in his head, plus the added eighty years he once again spent in the Lotus Hotel and Casino, that would make him one-hundred and ninety-six. Sweet Hades, he was old. And trapped in the body of a ten-year-old to make things worse.

Sea green es down at Nico with dark eyebrows drawn together. Nico could feel the stupid emotions crawling up his throat and choking him, the affection he once had from the Son of Poseidon now coming back tenth-fold to haunt him. He fucking swears if Eros just shoot another arrow into him Nico would grab the arrow and shove it straight up his ass. 

“Is Grover here? I wanna meet Grover!” Hope said excitedly. “And Annabeth! I wanna meet Annabeth too!” 

“How do you-”

  
Nico cut Percy off sharply. “Hope, maybe we should let the boy settle into the hotel.”   
“But he’s the hero in all your stories.” Hope pouted. “I never get to meet the heroes in your stories.” Hope clung tightly onto Percy forcing him to bend down so that the girl didn’t hurt herself or him. It looked extremely awkward. “And he’s going to be trapped here anyway.”

“Trapped? Nico were not trapped, were just waiting for Papa’s lawyer to come and get us.” Bianca said grabbing her brother’s arm.

“Trapped!” Percy said alarmed. “What do you mean trapped.”   
“This is the hotel of the Lotus-eaters, nobody leaves,” Nico explained.

Bianca gaped. “What? Nico!” 

“I need to find my friends!” Percy said quickly prying Hope from him and turning away to look frantically at the two he journeyed in with. 

“No, you can’t leave!” Hope said grabbing onto Percy’s arm, but he shook her off.

“I’m sorry, umm….” Percy trailed off looking up at Nico and Bianca as if they could help.   
Bianca said sheepishly. “Hope.”

  
“I’m sorry, Hope, you seem like a cool girl but I have to go.”   
“I said no!”

“Hope…” Nico said it lowly. He could see the amber bleeding into her blue-grey eyes, it looked like rich golden honey or the color of whiskey in clear glass or ichor from the wound of a bleeding god. 

Nico reacted fast, the air around them growing stale and hash. The tips of her golden-brown hair, raising it above her head like a halo. The room around them began to crack, the harsh horror movie sounds of the building breaking had made Nico react quickly. He pushed Bianca down to the ground, as she yelped and screamed Nico threw himself and Percy letting them both tumble down the stairs.

“ **I SAID YOU CAN’T LEAVE!** ” Hope screamed. And then, there was an explosion of golden light.

...///...///…///...

After Hope’s little meltdown Nico had a lot of explaining to do. No really, Bianca was giving him this disappointed sister look that quickly morphed into an ‘I-Don’t-Belive-You’ look that then turned into a look that was a mixture between ‘I’m-going-to-hurl’ and a ‘we’re-all-going-to-die’. 

He couldn’t tell her everything, something forbid him, but he did manage to tell her about the gods and the monster and the stupid hotel they couldn’t seem to leave. Nico was grateful for this one moment that Percy Jackson was here to also talk to his sister, through holding Riptide and looking very cautiously at Hope did make him was to snap at him. 

Hope for her part was ashamed, and exhausted, but mainly ashamed. The light she had produced seared the carpet beneath her feet and Nico had rushed up the stairs to find the girl panting over her knee and completely drained. Bianca was a little worse for wears, not physically hurt but after learning that she had spent seventy years in a hotel that didn’t let her age she became a little more defensive. 

Percy was on edge. It could still feel the pull of the Lotus Hotel and Casino, often or not letting his eyes wander over the extravagant activities he could partake in, but he always snapped back after Hope said something. 

“Sorry,” Nico mutters softly he slowed his pace to match Percy’s. They were now on their way to gather Annabeth and Grover. 

“What are you sorry for, this could be normal?” Percy said trying to lighten the mood but at Nico’s expression, he deflated like a balloon.   
“It’s really not.”

Percy glanced up ahead to where Hope was swinging her arms with Bianca wildly as they held hand. There was a bounce in her step and a little childish innocent. Percy couldn’t tell what she was, but she was dangerous. The hair on the back of his neck stood up as if just waiting for her to attack.“What is she? A demigod? A god? A monster?”   
“None of those,” Nico said. “She’s just… different.”

  
“How did you find her?” Percy asked.   
Nico avoided his gaze and let his eyes follow the people -besides Bianca- who were walking a little too close towards Hope. “... It’s a long story.”   
“I have time.”   
Nico ducked his head and glared at an elderly woman who stepped a little too close towards Bianca. “You really don’t, you need to find Annabeth and Grover and leave.”

  
“How do you even know about me? About Grover? About Annabeth?”   
“That’s another long story.”

“Are you going to tell me anything?” Percy asked frustrated. 

“... Not really.” Nico hesitates. “First I need to find a way out of this hotel.”

“You can come with us?” Nico didn’t even dignify that with a response. 

  
Nico felt dizzy. He turned towards a shop and walked in, losing sight of Bianca and Hope. He didn’t want to go to this shop but he couldn’t not go in. 

Vaguely he could remember seeing a woman in a glowing white gown with a cloak of peacock feathers over her shoulders, and a staff topped with a lotus flower in her hand. She smirked down at him with long licorice-black hair, a face of regal and unapproachable beauty like that of a supermodel on a fashion runway, and large, soft brown eyes that one could get lost in.  _ Hera.  _ Nico thought bitterly then his body moved on its own. Walking down the aisle as if he were under a spell. 

He fought against whatever was happening, he tried to direct his direction anywhere else but he had already made it to the end of the aisle. Percy stood next to him, his eyes now blank and dazed like. So whatever was happening to him was also happening to Percy. Great. 

He didn’t know where Bianca or Hope were and he began to panic, but his body didn’t move or shift expressions. There was white noise in his ears, ringing loudly and loudly that he couldn’t understand what Hera was saying what anyone was saying, but Hera had this look on her face as if she was hoping to make her husband’s life hell. Nico really hoped this didn’t involve him. 

He said something, he didn’t know what, the noise was drowned out by the ringing and then he felt himself turn towards Percy. He felt something being pushed up his fourth finger, it was a cold band of sorts and Nico panicked again. 

_ She wouldn’t… Please say she wouldn’t… Her husband would be against this, he would think it to be some act against him…. She was... She really was… Fucking Hera! Fucking Fates! CAN’T THEY JUST GIVE HIM A BREAK!!! _

Nico felt himself move and push a ring onto Percy’s fourth finger. Wow, his hands even at twelve were bigger than Nico’s.  _ FOCUS!  _ Right, right, right. Nico lifted his gaze to Percy’s and he could see that dazed look now gone and all that was left was his utter panic. Well, at least he was partly awake. 

Hera’s grin was filled with malice and spite. “I now pronounce you Husband and Husband, you may kiss the groom.”

_ Fucking Hades, could this possibly get any worse?! _


	4. Well this didn't go as plan but at least we're all alive... for now, at least.

It was worse! It was way worse! Nico didn’t think it could possibly be worse but it was! He was wrong!

While Nico was off marrying the guy of his dreams in a very forced and possible mind-controlling way because of a Queen Goddess, Hera, Hope had started a massacre and ended up killing a handful of the employees in the Lotus Hotel and Casino. Percy had gone off to puke in a potted flower behind Nico, a glistening gold ring still attached to his fourth finger. Nico looked with some adjusted horror at the bloody and disgusting mess around them. He was pretty sure one guy was dragging himself across the ground… to the other side of his body. 

Hope stood in the middle of the massacre, every inch of her covered in sticky gold color. But Nico would be lying if he said, she didn’t look like she was auditioning for an ichor covered ‘Carrie’. As she glared at the man dragging himself across the ground, he exploded in a mess of ichor. It then did he realize, in the mess of things, Annabeth and Grover stood horrified beside a petrified Bianca. 

“Hope!” Nico yelled.   
Hope turned her gaze to him, amber eyes glowing and burning with light. He blinked, and she was gone. The small arms wrapped around his knees. Nico dropped his hand to the small child clinging to him, her amber eyes melting into her natural gray-blue color yet filled with thick golden tears. 

Nico never did like Hope crying, her tears felt like acid burning into his skin. Whenever she cried it felt as if his heart was tearing into pieces and he could do nothing but hold her as she cried it out. He dropped to his knees and held her in his arms. 

“I’m sorry.” Nico apologized to Hope’s hair.   
Hope hiccuped. “Where’d you go?”

“I’m so sorry,” Nico apologized again, because what can he say, I left you for a bit to get married? “I’m sorry. Gods I’m sorry, Hope.”  
“Don’t leave,” Hope whined. “Don’t ever leave me.”  
“I won’t,” Nico promised. “I’m here, I’m here Hope.”

“What is that?!” Grover looks horrified at the small child.  
“Hope.” Percy eyed the two, flickering from the soft expression on Nico’s face to the teary-eyed child.   
“Who is that?”Annabeth points her knife at the small Italian boy with lifeless eyes.  
Percy swallowed, bile and the remaining vomit in his mouth burning on the way back down his throat. “Nico.”

“We should just leave,” Annabeth whispers, pulling Percy away as Nico held Hope. “Percy you didn’t see what that little girl did.”  
“Yeah, she looked at them and then…” Grover intimidated the sound of something exploding

“I can’t just leave them here.”  
“Why not?!” Annabeth shrieked loudly. 

“Percy…” Annabeth said slowly, looking at the glistening golden ring on Percy’s finger that pulsed faintly along with Nico’s heartbeat.  
“It’s a long story.” Percy winced, hiding his hand from sight. Nico felt his chest squeeze in on itself before ignoring it.   
“It’s not that long,” Nico said, showing off his identical ring. “Hera did some mind-controlling thing and now where married.”

For some reason the ring pulsed faster, Nico glanced from the corner of his eye at Percy’s flustered face and heatless glare aimed at him. 

“How did you know it was Hera?” Grover asked skeptically.  
Nico shrugged mindful not to move Hope. “Peacock feathers.”

Annabeth didn’t look convinced and Bianca refused to look at him, instead opting to look down at the floor.  
“Do you know a good divorce god or goddess?” Percy asked quietly.   
Annabeth and Grover both glance at each other before looking back at Percy. Percy then tried to yank the ring off his finger but to no avail, he deflated slightly after that.

“When a god marries you off,” Grover winces, “Especially Hera, you're married for life.”

...///...///...///...

The Lotus bellhop hurried up to the six. "Well, now, are you ready for your platinum cards?"  
"We're leaving," Percy told him, his grip tight on Nico’s wrist and Hope peeking over his shoulder in his other arm. 

"Such a shame," he said. "We just added an entirely new floor full of games for platinum-card members."   
Nico glared at shoved his sister out of the way when it looked as if she were about to grab one. Grover reached for the card, but Annabeth yanked back his arm and said, "No, thanks." 

The six walked toward the door, and as they did, the smell of the food and the sounds of the games seemed to get more and more inviting. Then they burst through the doors of the Lotus Casino and ran down the sidewalk.

It was stormy, with heat lightning flashing out in the desert. The world that Nico had lived in looked nothing like this, it wasn’t a barren wasteland tainted with radiation and trampled on by monsters and giants and titans. Buildings weren’t consumed by nature in Gaea’s way to take back the earth, people weren’t’ corpses, there were traffic and cars that weren’t all hurled together to make a wall. Nico couldn’t see a bomb casing insight. Truly he was back in a time he once thought long gone. 

It was Annabeth's idea. She loaded them all into the back of a Vegas van-taxi as if they had money, and told the driver, "Los Angeles, please."

Nico sat squished beside Percy in the back with Hope’s exhausted from leaning against him and the window fast asleep. Grover sat in front of them and with both Bianca and Annabeth at his side. Nico could feel the heat race to his cheeks as the entire left side of his body was pressed tightly into Percy’s side as he tried to give the young girl all the space she needed. 

The cabbie chewed his cigar and sized us up. "That's three hundred miles. For that, you gotta pay upfront."   
"You accept casino debit cards?" Annabeth asked.   
He shrugged. "Some of 'em. Same as credit cards. I gotta swipe 'em through first." Annabeth handed him her green LotusCash card. He looked at it skeptically.   
"Swipe it," Annabeth invited. 

He did. His meter machine started rattling. The lights flashed. Finally, an infinity symbol came up next to the dollar sign. The cigar fell out of the driver's mouth. He looked back at us, his eyes wide. "Where to in Los Angeles... uh, Your Highness?" 

"The Santa Monica Pier." Annabeth sat up a little straighter. Nico snorted at that and Annabeth shot a glare back at him.   
"Get us there fast, and you can keep the change." She said that and the cab's speedometer never dipped below ninety-five the whole way through the Mojave Desert.

On the road, the six had plenty of time to talk. Percy old about his latest dream, Nico could feel the weight on his tongue and his lips glued shut as he tried to say the words. He could only glare at Annabeth as she assumed that it was all his father’s fault, Hades was the only god who helped in the world ending war, he spared the demigods a several months before he died at his children’s feet. He didn’t see Athena getting off her throne and fighting her grandfather or Poseidon getting his ass out of the sea to help, though the two were killed off by the first year of the apocalypse. 

The group was driving to the Underworld at ninety-five miles an hour, betting that Hades had the master bolt, which he didn’t and Nico couldn’t say anything. They were wrong and they were going to find out they were wrong when they got there. The solstice deadline would come, Percy would uncover the truth about Luke, and then Percy would save the world again.. All Nico had to do was take care of Hope and make sure Percy doesn’t die. 

"The answer is in the Underworld," Annabeth assured Percy. "You saw spirits of the dead, Percy. There's only one place that could be. We're doing the right thing." 

Nico bit his tongue and clenched his fist, feeling the pulsing from his ring. Annabeth noticed the sour look on Nico’s face but ignored him in an effort of talking more with Percy.

Annabeth tried to boost everyone’s morale by suggesting clever strategies for getting into the Land of the Dead, Nico had just suggested walking in there and Bianca had gone for a morbid approach and said they should all just kill each other. The van jerked a little what awoke Hope from her slumber. Not much was said after that but Grover did inch away from Bianca a little too quickly. 

At sunset, the taxi dropped the six at the beach in Santa Monica. Hope had run ahead looking at everything with interest, asking questions a mile a minute that Nico answered the best he could. Bianca trailed after Grover, Annabeth, and Percy as they walked down to the edge of the surf. 

"What now?" Annabeth asked. 

Percy stepped into the surf 

"Percy?" Annabeth said. "What are you doing?"   
He kept walking, up to his waist, then his chest. Nico watched the ring on his fourth finger pulsing calmly against his skin.   
Annabeth called after him, "You know how polluted that water is? They're all kinds of toxic-"   
That's when his head went under.

“PERCY!” Annabeth screamed in frustration.  
“He’s the son of Poseidon, he’s going to be fine,” Nico said.   
Grover’s head snapped towards Nico. “How do you even know that.”

Nico didn’t answer, well, more like it was physically impossible to answer. 

“You know what,” Annabeth said stressed, turning to Nico with fury in her stormy grey eyes. , “I want answers.”  
Annabeth took a step forward threateningly, digging the tip of her knife into Nico’s throat.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!” Bianca screamed shoving Annabeth away from her brother causing the blonde to hit the ground hard.  
“Hey-”  
Bianca was pissed, she even shoved Grover out of the way to get more into Annabeth’s face and scream at her. Nico was impressed, for the whole ride Bianca hadn’t said a word to him let alone look at him yet here she was defending him like an angry honey badger. Annabeth grew red in the face as she stood up, screaming at Bianca. Bianca screamed back. Annabeth screamed back. And again, and again, and again. 

The two drew in quite a crowd and Nico had to hold Hope close to him as more nosy people came around to look at the two screaming pre-teens. Nico watched the water ripple against as Percy reached the beach, his clothes dried instantly. Percy looked at the two girls than to a frantic looking Grover who was watching them like a tennis match. “What’s going on?”  
Nico shrugged. “Nothing much.” 

“Percy! You’re back!” Hope cheered throwing herself back into Percy so that he fell back into the water. He let out an oof sound as the two seized fighting to look back at Percy. 

Percy told the little group what had happened, and showed them the pearls. 

Annabeth grimaced. "No gift comes without a price."   
"They were free."   
"No." She shook her head. "'There is no such thing as a free lunch.' That's an ancient Greek saying that translated pretty well into American. There will be a price. You wait."

With some spare change from Ares's backpack, the six took the bus into West Hollywood. Annabeth at the start had wished to leave Bianca, Nico, and Hope behind for the simple fact that she didn’t trust them. Grover disagreed quickly saying we were unarmed demigods. And Percy disagreed, holding up his ring finger and stating they still needed to deal with this. Annabeth had then begrudgingly agreed. 

Percy showed the driver the Underworld address slip, but he'd never heard of DOA Recording Studios. "You remind me of somebody I saw on TV," he told me. 

"You a child actor or something?"  
"Uh ... I'm a stunt double ... for a lot of child actors."   
"Oh! That explains it." 

The group thanked him and got off quickly at the next stop. They wandered for miles on foot, looking for DOA. Nobody seemed to know where it was. It didn't appear in the phone book. Twice, they ducked into alleys to avoid cop cars. 

Percy froze in front of an appliance-store window because a television was playing an interview. Nico watched beside Percy, looking at the fat man, dressed like 'a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes'. He had a rather off-putting appearance with a double-chin and is bald but for three black hairs he has combed over his scalp. He was talking to a reporter as if he were some kind of huge celebrity. She was interviewing him in an apartment, in the middle of a poker game, and a young blond lady was sitting next to him, patting his hand. A tear glistened on his cheek. He was saying, "Honest, Ms. Walters, if it wasn't for Sugar here, my grief counselor, I'd be a wreck. My stepson took everything I cared about. My wife ... my Camaro ... I-I'm sorry. I have trouble talking about it."

"There you have it, America." The reporter turned to the camera. "A man torn apart. An adolescent boy with serious issues. Let me show you, again, the last known photo of this troubled young fugitive, taken a week ago in Denver." 

The screen cut to a grainy shot of Percy, Annabeth, and Grover standing outside the Colorado diner, talking to Ares.

"Who are the other children in this photo?" The reporter asked dramatically. "Who is the man with them? Is Percy Jackson a delinquent, a terrorist, or perhaps the brainwashed victim of a frightening new cult? When we come back, we chat with a leading child psychologist. Stay tuned, America." 

"C'mon," Grover told Percy. He hauled him away before he could punch a hole in the appliance-store window.

...///...///...///...


End file.
